


Time

by GlitterQuake



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Melinda May - Freeform, Philinda - Freeform, Philinda Death, phil coulson - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 05:46:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14635338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlitterQuake/pseuds/GlitterQuake
Summary: Time is a funny concept, and sometimes, there's too much, or too little of it.- A prompt about Philinda with the theme of Time.





	Time

Time was a funny concept, it always had been really. There was either too little of it, or too much of it, people longed to see the future, but others longed to live in the past. The future was always something that others looked to, worried about, and Melinda wasn't too sure whether that was because the young lacked wisdom. Others, they stayed stuck in the past, so much so, that they couldn't see the future, and maybe, Melinda thought, that was because the old lacked hope. Some had so much time, that time became worthless, like sand slipping through the fingers, and before they knew it, time dissolved like a mirage within a desert.

Melinda, she wasn't really either of those people. She admired time, how fast at times it seemed to go, how agonisingly slow it passed at other moments. She liked to look at the past, the good and the bad moments, the moments that defined her and made her, her. She liked to reminisce, she liked to see herself back in the Academy at SHIELD, meeting Phil Coulson, becoming an agent, surpassing her goals, and at the same time, she liked to look to the future. She liked to ponder, not too much, on what her future would be, would she retire from SHIELD? Would she die a SHIELD agent?

But now, time had passed, and Melinda had changed. She valued time, because every fleeting minute was precious. Maybe, it was because, for some, today might be their last tomorrow. Maybe it was because Phil Coulson was dying, and Melinda didn't know when he'd go, and time was so precious because they only had a short amount of time to help him, to save him and Melinda was determined to save him.

Because Melinda, she couldn't see a future without Phil Coulson. In the past, as someone beginning at SHIELD academy, Melinda had only seen SHIELD, impressing her mother, working towards her goals that she had set for the future, but as she stood here, in a dim corridor, walking alongside Phil Coulson, she saw the future of SHIELD, the future for her. And she wasn't ready to let it slip away, she wasn't ready to let it become meaningless.

"You know" his voice echoed through the corridor. The two walked with guns in their hands, Melinda always a step-in front, and he had pretended not to notice "This is sort of like a horror movie. Should I expect someone to jump out and say, 'Here's Johnny'?"

Melinda glanced to him, a small smile quirked her face. She wouldn't admit it, she never did, but she found the references he made to Star Wars, to Captain America, to movies, dorky, and it made her smile.

"Was that a smile I just saw?" he asked, a raised eyebrow and a smile of his own embracing his face "Did I just make Melinda May smile with a reference?"

"I was thinking about all the Kree ass we're going to kick"

His smile fell slightly, and he stopped within the corridor as the two approached the end. She turned, regarding him with confusion.

"Phil?"

"Are you sure you're up for this Melinda?" he asked gently, before glancing to her leg. She closed her eyes briefly, opening them to find the proximity between them had shortened, he was closer, and his vibrant eyes that were now littered with pain were fulfilled with concern "I never asked..."

"It's fine" she felt her throat tighten slightly at the words. It wasn't fine, it hadn't been fine, nothing had been the same within her leg since the injury she had obtained within the future. She had thought that perhaps time would have healed it, that perhaps, like everything she'd overcome it, but the trauma it had suffered, the fact that it had been exposed to infection, had left it different somehow. It didn't feel the same, nothing did anymore. Time had moved them all, and as she thought about it, the more she became aware to it. Everyone on the team, they had begun as someone else, people who hadn't been exposed to the ruthlessness and harshness of the true world. They had all undergone their own traumas, traumas that, now that she thought about it, had been forgotten, that her team had hidden and buried deep within themselves. And maybe, maybe the trauma's and experiences the team had faced had allowed them to grow stronger, and wiser, and develop, but it was still unspoken, and Melinda knew from her experience with Bahrain, that bottling everything up, hiding it deep within yourself, was the worst possible thing to do.

Phil watched her cautiously for a moment, his gun and arm loosely hung at his side, and he reached over, grabbing her shoulder with his free hand. She didn't tense at the touch, she felt appealingly at ease. There was something within her that had been craving this touch for a long time.

"How about" he began, and Melinda suddenly noticed how soft his features were. How tired they were. And it wasn't a tired that needed a good night’s sleep, it was something so much more. Maybe it was the wearing of emotions that tired him, that had ingrained themselves as part of his life that he lived, that he survived. Maybe it was SHIELD, a career he had chosen, an emblem that he had embedded within himself, that he himself resembled. Maybe it was time, they had both grown, they had both watched the transformation of SHIELD from stages, they had both witnessed an evolution, they had both seen so much trauma, so much life loss, so much life wasted "After this, we find a bottle of Haig, and binge some movies? A night in your own bed, that's what you asked for"

Despite his tired face, his eyes, they held a hope in what seemed to be a hopelessly dark universe. He managed to smile, he managed to joke, he always stayed determined. He carried SHIELD on its back, and he fought for the world even though the world sometimes fought against him. He had so much hope, that it was contagious, and Melinda found herself believing, even when at times, it seemed impossible to do so.

"Sounds good. Star Wars?" she offered.

"I think we've had enough of fighting in space" he commented, and she shook her head slightly, smiling.

"I think you're right"

And then there was silence between the two of them. And for a moment, time seemed to have stopped, it was just the two of them in motion, his hand resting on her shoulder, her eyes locking onto his, everything seemed to be perfectly blissful, despite the fighting on other levels of the ship occurring, despite the fact that time was still moving, sand slipping through the cracks.

"I love you" she repeated. And she didn't know why she had said it there, and then, and she didn't know why she had told him again because he knew. It wasn't something you forgot lightly.

He half smiled, glancing to the ground, and Melinda could see a sadness on his features. She had made her declaration of love, it wasn't a grand speech she had been rehearsing for weeks, it wasn't something she had pondered on, but the silence that fell between them this time, laid on her skin like a poison. It seeped into her blood, paralysed her brain, there was some sort of tremor to her hands, one that she hadn't felt for a long time. And his face, it resembled one of sadness, but there was a sad smile on it now.

"Melinda please" he almost begged, his voice a hoarse whisper.

And Melinda understood. Phil Coulson, he wasn't fighting against dying, he wasn't arguing against life's decision to remove him, he was fighting for SHIELD, and he had prepared Daisy to take over when he was gone. With SHIELD in safe hands, he could rest easy. Hearing he was loved, by her, made it impossibly hard to let go, to give up, and Melinda didn't care. She wouldn't have him die, not again, not on her watch.

"No" his hand dropped from her shoulder, his arm swinging loosely back into place. His head was still bowed, and he was still avoiding eye contact. She moved this time, lifting his head so that they locked eyes "You have to hear this Phil. You don't just mean everything to SHIELD, but you mean a lot to me. Everything"

Then there was silence again. He took a step closer, and she closed her eyes, a breath leaving her lips. His forehead met hers, and the two stayed like that momentarily, foreheads resting on one and another. She could feel his breath touching her lips, she leaned in, he did two. This is the moment in time she had been waiting for.

And as quickly as they leaned in, she pulled back hearing the whirl of a pistol. She turned in shock, a Kree stood by the door, gun fired in the direction of Phil who was still registering everything. The corridor seemed impossibly thin, and time suddenly seemed fleeting as the bullet that had been fired rippled through the air. Melinda's movements seemed too slow, and the bullet seemed too fast.

She let out a gasp as the bullet found its way to her upper chest, and time seemed to move slowly again. She was falling to the floor, she could hear Coulson shouting, she could hear bullets firing and before she hit the ground, she was caught. She laid in the arms of Phil Coulson, his eyes staring into hers, his hands were the ones now trembling as they made their way to her chest that had blood pooling out of it.

She had been shot before, she had been shot quite a few times, but nothing had felt quite as painful as this. Adrenaline often masked the pain, but adrenaline could only cover so much, and Melinda could feel it, like a red-hot poker to her chest being held pushed through. The blood felt warm, and Melinda felt dizzy as she felt the blood taint her clothes, the warmth of bullet, and the warmth of the blood seeping out. 

"That was a stupid with to do, Melinda" he whispered, there was shock lacing his voice. She felt light, dizzy, the pain was horrific "I don't have long left Mel, you should have- You should have let me get shot"

She smiled slightly, he was always selfless, always the one willing to take the bullet when he didn't have to. And that was something she had always admired and loved about the man that currently held her as she bled out into his arms. And love was a funny thing, you didn't have to be in a relationship to love someone, you didn't have to hold their hand or kiss them, or hold them, you just had to know them. And Melinda had known Phil for a long time, and she knew love endured, it remained pristine throughout the years. They had been through a lot together, they had seen an unimaginable amount together, they had died at one point, and despite everything, despite everything they had been through, they endured.

"Like hell" Melinda coughed "You're not dying on my watch"

"Y-Yeah?" He was nervous, and she could tell, and that's how she knew it was bad. Time had aged his ability to lie to her poorly "Well, you hold on and make sure I don't die, okay? I won't die if you don't, May"

She smiled slightly at that. This was by far the worse promise they had made in their history. She remembered when they were in the academy, he promised he'd take her out for coffee, and that never did happen, because Melinda hated coffee- he had taken her to a tea shop instead. But this promise, the promise that if she didn't die, he wouldn't, was a lie. Because she didn't know if she would survive this, she could feel it now, her essence of life slowly falling away, sand slipping through the cracks, time suddenly speeding up, running to the end of her timeline, fast forwarding. And she knew he was stubborn, if it became between saving himself and the world, whether she survived or not, he would put the world first every day. 

She felt her grip on the world become lesser and lesser. She could hear the shouting of Daisy in the background, it was distant, and Deke was probably with her, at least then Phil would get out safe and alive. 

"I love you" 

The words she spoke seemed like a splinter, and she could see the visible pain on his face as she spoke the words for the third time, and possibly the final. The pain that had once burned her like a fire had faded away, it was nothing more than an icy numbness within her. She felt her breathing become shortened, she was taking shallow gasps as she laid in his arms. Seconds passed, she wasn't too sure whether it was minutes, and the more she stayed there, the more she wanted to hold on. Death hadn't been something that had scared Melinda before, the concept hadn't been frightening, but she always fought, she fought no matter what. And now here she was, knocking on the door of death, her blood running cold, her eyes slowly closing, black filling the edges of her vision, the only thing she could see was Phil, his face, his eyes that were washed over with fresh tears for her. She didn't want to let go, not yet, she didn't want it to be her time, she wanted to save him, to see her team grow, to see Daisy become the leader she was born to be, she wanted to grow old, to hold Phil's hand. 

But at least she got her final moments with him. 

And suddenly, as Phil became nothing more than a blur, as his words became without sound, the despair and suffering that she had tried to protect the world from in the name of SHIELD became meaningless. Bahrain became a distant thought, the suffering she had been through, the obstacles she had overcome, the people she had killed, were nothing more than a fragment.

"Melinda please... Don't let go, I don't want you to go" 

"I'm- I'm so-sorry" 

"Melinda, I lov-" 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this! I'm trying to develop my writing, and I do love to write a good bit of description. There MAYBE a part two to this, I'm undecided yet, but if there is, there WILL be Philinda love ;) 
> 
> Twitter- @GlitterQuake


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